Physics

Indians have long known this, and parents can take pride in seeing the trend long before the world recognised it. Doctors and engineers in the family have always been valued in India. Now, a study done by Professor Geraint Johnes from the University of Lancaster Management School of the UK has found that physics, chemistry and biology have come out top in terms of students' later salaries. He found that people who took physics, chemistry and biology together at A level were paid the most.

By Anand Ramachandran India is one of the most paradoxical economies of the world. The world's second most populous nation, 10th largest economy and the largest democracy, still uses paper cash to settle a majority of retail transactions. This presents a huge challenge for scaling up of the economy. Our bank notes in circulation to GDP ratio stands at 13% which is way higher than the global range of 2.5 to 8%. In FY13, we had 76 billion notes in circulation...

STOCKHOLM: Two Japanese scientists and a Tokyo-born American shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for physics for their work in sub-atomic physics, the prize committee said on Tuesday. The committee recognised Yoichiro Nambu, a Tokyo-born U.S. citizen, for his discovery of the mechanism of "spontaneous broken symmetry in sub-atomic physics". He shared half of the prestigious 10 mn Swedish crown ($1.4 mn) prize with Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, who were recognised for...

It is not often that scientists win the Nobel as well as the Ignoble prize , and therefore the feat of Prof Andre Geim is all the more commendable. He may have bagged this year's Nobel Prize for physics along with Prof Konstantin Novoselov for the discovery of grapheme that will hugely benefit electronics and other industries that need light, yet tougher materials, but his feat of levitating a frog (that got him the Ignoble 10 years ago with Michael Berry of Bristol...

WASHINGTON: Al-Qaeda core is now focused on physical survival following battlefield losses, but the terrorist outfit will remain a difficult and critical intelligence challenge this year, Pentagon has said. "Beyond the immediate threats posed by ISIL, the Afghan insurgency, and homegrown violent extremists aspired to travel overseas, particularly to Syria and Iraq, al-Qaeda will remain a difficult and critical intelligence challenge in 2015," Lt Gen Vincent Stewart,...

By Uma Shashikant Plans for better health and wealth top the list of new year resolutions, and are equally notorious for being broken before long. The nice thing about fundamental principles in managing wealth is that they work just fine at any time of the year. Let me proceed to list off like a good teacher should, a check-list for personal finance . First, all you have are your assets, so don't take the eyes off from building them. Except for the lucky few that...

BANGALORE: SudhirVempati, assistant professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, was among the hundreds of thousands of people who closely followed the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Like everybody else in the world, he was curious about the existence of the Higgs boson. But Vempati had another reason to be nervous. He works on an exotic topic called supersymmetry, and its...

STOCKHOLM: A US and a French scientist won the Nobel Prize in Physics for work in quantum optics that paved the way for precision clocks and may lead to a new generation of super-fast computers. Serge Haroche , 68, from France's Ecole Normale Superieure, and David J Wineland, also 68, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, will share the 8 million-krona ($1.2 million) prize, the...

WASHINGTON: An Indian-American university professor of physics and astronomy has been named for the prestigious Cherry Award in recognition of her exceptional teaching career. The Baylor University on Thursday has named Meera Chandrasekhar as the recipient of the 2014 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, the only teaching award in the US that carries the single largest monetary reward of $250,000. "Dr Chandrasekhar is an internationally known...

Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner, the theoretical physicist who became interested in Vedanta philosophy - particularly its ideas of the universe as an all-pervading consciousness - wrote that materialism was "not logically consistent with present quantum mechanics ". He wasn't alone. Sir Rudolf Peierls, another great 20th-century physicist, wrote, "The premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being...including knowledge and consciousness, is untenable.

NEW DELHI: India and Russia held major consultation in the realm of nuclear research away from the public eye ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Brazil in July. Nuclear energy was a key element at Modi-Putin talks. Both countries are discussing to set up Russian assisted 22 nuclear power projects in India. Last month a scientific forum was held at the Joint Institute for Nuclear...

By Aparajita Gupta NEW DELHI: It's still a small component of India's Rs.38 trillion ($600 billion) overall retail trade industry. Yet, the e-commerce format with sales of Rs.1 trillion ($16 billion) managed to create a buzz in 2014 like never before - not just with mega promotions but also with mergers, acquisitions and some crazy valuations. Earlier in December, the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group sold its 16-percent stake in Yatra.com, a leading leading consolidator...

LONDON: Gold today climbed on speculation the metal's drop to a three-week low will encourage more physical purchases. Gold rose 0.5 per cent to $ 1,182.08 an ounce. It reached $ 1,170.76 yesterday, the lowest since December 1. Silver also gained 0.4 per cent to $ 15.74 an ounce. Bullion slipped 1.6 per cent yesterday as the dollar spot index strengthened to a five-year high and as crude dropped. Meanwhile, gold lost 1.6 per cent this year, following 2013's 28...

NEW DELHI: For the welfare of tribals, the government is taking various measures to improve physical infrastructure and address issues in the areas of education, health and livelihood, Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram told the Lok Sabha today. As part of its relentless efforts for welfare of tribals, the ministry is making attempts to address "critical gaps through limited resources in the areas of education, health and livelihood", he said...

In early 2008, Bajaj Finance had a ten-member team primed up and ready to launch its loan-against-mortgage business. However, it was a good six months before the team disbursed its first loan. The reason for the delay was Sanjiv Bajaj, Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv. He kept sending the team back to the drawing board with one brief: find differentiators. "When you enter a new space, the initial impression you create is very important; we didn't want...

LONDON: Gold today climbed as oil prices increased and on signs of more physical purchases from Asia. Gold rose 0.6 per cent to USD 1,205.53 an ounce. It fell 1.1 per cent yesterday, after reaching a one-month high of USD 1,221.43 the previous day. Silver also added 0.5 per cent to USD 16.55 an ounce. Brent crude advanced for the second time in three days, as a rout to the lowest since 2009 prompted by OPEC's failure to curb production...

Do scientists ever talk about God seriously - say, at a well-publicised forum? The surprising answer is they do. During one particular panel discussion at the SETIcon II conference in the US last month, the main point of dialogue centred around the question of whether there was any requirement for some divine power to kick-start the universe 13.7 billion years ago. In response, astrophysicist Alex Filippenko said, "The...

Q I am appearing for plus two (physics, chemistry, maths). I want to pursue my graduation from Jawaharlal Nehru University in foreign languages. What are the prospects of this course? How do I assess which foreign language is most in demand for placements? From where can I get previous years' question papers and syllabi? Rajeev Ranjan Rakshit A: Training in a foreign language would enable you to become a translator, an interpreter, a teacher or work as an expert in multimedia...

KOLKATA: Union steel & mines minister has called for a time-bound action plan to complete geo-physical and geo-chemical mapping of the country's national resources. He said the government wants to share this data in public domain to attract investment in mining. Addressing the fourth meeting of Geo-science Advisory Council (GAC) held under his chairmanship at New Delhi on Wednesday, the minister, Narendra Singh Tomar said: "India...